REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK
More than a week into life without Eli Carter, Rutgers already has a pretty clear picture of how the remainder of its season could play out.

It was shaped six days ago on the court at The Pavilion in the loss to Villanova. Mike Rice's team had done enough to get the win — Myles Mack picked up the scoring load, the Scarlet Knights got contributions from elsewhere on the offensive end — but the only problem was there just wasn't enough gas left. Especially when the Wildcats began pressing and forcing Rutgers to exert more energy getting the ball up the floor.

Adjusting to life without a star player is never easy.

"It definitely changes the way you want to play," Providence head coach Ed Cooley said this past Thursday during the Big East's weekly teleconference with reporters. "It changes the makeup of your team."

The head coach of Rutgers' opponent on Saturday night knows first-hand the difference between a team with a star player and without.

Vincent Council, Providence's preseason all-Big East first team guard, missed 10 games in the beginning of the season after suffering a hamstring injury in the team's season-opener against NJIT. Council averaged 15.9 points per game last season and 7.5 assists and removing the key cog to Providence's offense changed the complexion completely. The Friars went 7-3 with Council on the sidelines.

Making matters worse during the absence of Council, the Friars were without Bryce Cotton for two separate games. (Both were losses.)

"It definitely changes your strategy," Cooley said. "You're going to have the same philosophy, but when you take your leading scorer and focal point guy away, it makes it very difficult — as far as preparation, matchups, your substitution pattern. It's just hard. Especially when have programs like ours, where you're trying to build these programs, it's very, very difficult to do. That the average fan, just wouldn't know."

With Rutgers having just over 48 hours between Carter's season-ending injury — a fractured right fibula — and its next game on the road at Villanova, the turnaround wasn't easy on Rice's team. While Mack had 24 points, he only had eight after halftime as 36 minutes of action — a season-high — took its toll on him in the game's final minutes.

Mack's backcourt mate, Jerome Seagears, didn't fare much better. Rice felt that a number of Seagears' late-game turnovers were a direct result of fatigue from having played 35 minutes.

"I've got to give both of them a rest so they can finish better," Rice said after the game. "I think Jerome was fatigued. His decisions were fatigued at the end of the game. And I've got to get Jerome — he's such a competitor and he's so good defensively — but he wasn't good defensively in the last five minutes because he was too tired. That's on me. I've got to do a better job."

Cooley knows first-hand what Rice's team is going through. And what awaits them for the rest of this season.

"We as coaches try to prepare for that in our practice sessions," Cooley said. "If somebody's sick or injured or something happens in somebody's family, you try to have practices where you do sit your best players down. Try to formulate some sort of identity. You don't want to do that, but to go through a season without an illness or injury? If you do, you're really, really fortunate."

FanMatch is a part of the KenPom site, which uses a formula to not only determine which games will be pleasurable to watch on a certain day, but also how a game is forecasted to be determined.

ABOUT THE FRIARS
It may have been overlooked a bit during the week -- and the drubbing at the hands of Syracuse -- but Providence's Vincent Council broke the Big East's all time assist mark against the Orange on Wednesday night. He moved past Sherman Douglas who held the mark for 24 years. Council will enter Saturday night's game against Rutges with 431 career assists in league games -- an average of 6.4 per game for his career. However, he is unlikely to touch Douglas' record of most assists in all games by a Big East player, with 960. Council only has 678.